Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

114 ELECTRICITY, RAILROADS, AND RADIO (1911-16)
The work that McBride and his group did between 1909 and 1911
resulted in new methods for calibrating pentane lamps in terms of the Bureau
candle and laid the basis for establishing standards of gas service, both
illuminating and heating. The results were furnished to State and municipal
authorities that had requested Bureau assistance in drafting gas service
regulations.
The Bureau urged that the quality of gas be determined by its heating
value rather than its candlepower, as was then the practice in most cities,
and that it be sold on the basis of the British thermal unit (Btu), not by
the cubic foot. Gas company engineers argued that the consumer was not
concerned with heating value, certainly not in gas lamps; but statistical
studies by the Bureau showed that the usefulness of gas to the consumer
was almost exactly proportional to its heating value, whether used in heating
appliances or in gas-mantle lamps, and successfully refuted the claims of
some of the companies that the amount of gas used by consumers was not
increased when the heating value was reduced. So long as gas was sold
by the cubic foot, the gas companies had little incentive to purify their
product, and it permitted them to sell excessive and useless quantities of
nitrogen and sulfur compounds in their gas, introduced during the
manufacturing process.21
The Bureau circular putting standards of gas service into the hands
of public service commissions recognized the hostility of the utilities to the
regulations it recommended. It reassured the industry that the Bureau "in
no way concerned itself with the financial regulation of gas companies
* * *
[or with their] works management." It carefully stressed that "the attitude
of the Bureau is entirely advisory, and its intention is only to place in the
hands of the technical and general public an impartial and, as nearly as may
be, accurate summary of the facts which must be considered in connection
with the inspection and testing of the quality and distribution of * * * gas."
The circular also pointed out that the utilities stood in need of public con-
fidence and would therefore gain much from the passage of local laws and
ordinances regulating their services.22 But a decade passed before the in-
Elmer R. Weaver, MS, "History of the gas chemistry section, NBS, 1910—1957" (October
1964), pp. 2, 6 (NBS Historical File).
22 NBS C32 (1912), pp. 5—6. "Drastic" was the word Henry L. Doherty used to describe
some of the Bureau's proposed regulations. A self-made gas utilities magnate, whose
Cities Service holding company was to take over 53 independent operating companies
in 1913 alone, Doherty spoke for the industry when he wrote to the Bureau: "I cer-
tainly do not want to see any burdens placed on the gas companies that will be hard
for them to meet." Confidential letters, Doherty to NBS, Mar. 9 and Apr. 2, 1912 (NBS
Box 7,1CC).
The original and somewhat intimidating title of C32, "State and municipal regulations
for the quality, distribution and testing of illuminating gas," was changed to "Standard